So Sorry, Sakura
by Pixie Jones
Summary: Sakuras, like most flowers, are short lived and delicate things. And, oh, what a beautiful color they turn when they die. Drabbles Sakura Centric Character Death
1. And Oh, That Smile

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto?

Words: 1,072

Summary: Sometimes it's just like pouring water into a cracked vase, huh Sakura?

Sai lay there, his wound mortally fatal and slipping faster by the second. To make things worse it was raining, which was thoroughly uncomfortable. If he was capable of emotion right now he figured he'd be feeling fear right now. People with emotion always fear death - or so the books always told him.

No one understood Sai. Nobody understood his curiosity of emotions. Everyone always took them for granted, never even noticed how lucky they were to possess such a thing, never understood the luxury. Sai was always pulling emotions out of people, always wanted to see how different things made different facial expressions. Over the years he began to realize which emotion was the easiest to grab a hold of – anger. All he had to do was insult, or even better, insult a loved one. And everyone reacted in different ways, may it be to retort back or to cause physical harm.

But as Sai lay there, pink hair kunochi above him pumping chakra to his wound, he still couldn't fathom what it would be like to have emotions. He had gotten the occasional question of 'what is it like to live without emotions?' Sai always wanted to reply with something like 'What does it feel like to have emotions?'

Sai watched in amazement of the tears falling down Sakura's cheeks as she refused to give up on his failing body. He didn't know how the hell he could distinguish those tears in the rain, perhaps it was in how glassy her eyes seemed right now. Nobody had cried over him before, not that he'd know of. It was… nice. He had no other way of explaining it than that.

"Ugly, stop wasting your chakra on me, you're just wasting it." Sakura looked at Sai and glared at his smiling features. Even on the verge of death that boy was smiling falsely, always pretending that a false smile would make a situation better somehow. She hated that false smile; she wanted something real from him. She figured that she'd never be able to see something real now.

"Damnit Sai, stop smiling like that! Why the hell do you always have to be smiling like that?" She tore at him verbally through her tears, her throat hurting from holding back as much as she had. But she did what he told her to. She leaned back to look at him, wondering how long he had left.

"I guess… I never was able to perfect my facial expressions, was I?" He murmured up to her, smile gone with a blank expression in its wake. Sakura looked down into his empty eyes, and she could feel herself being sucked into them. Why did she kill herself on boys like these? She knew they would never care for her, and yet she always found herself wanting to be close to them. There was always something alluring about a man who was incapable of loving her back. Maybe there was something wrong with her, maybe she had something twisted about her that loved to feel unloved.

Knowing that she would never be able to do something like this again Sakura leaned forward and buried her face into Sai's neck. Any man with emotion would have tensed in how uncomforting it was at that moment, even the almost-emotionless Sasuke, but not Sai. Sai always took everything with a calm and cool demeanor. Sai just lay there wondering what had posses the kunochi to show him this sudden bust of affection.

"Sai, this is it, I'll never see you again after this. I'll never hear your stupid condescending words again. I'll never look over our shoulder as you paint again. I'll never punch you for insulting Sasuke again. This is it, Sai." Sakura cried into Sai's cold neck. And he thought about it. That was a lot of never agains. This was the end of the end. There was no more after this. Something grabbed his chest, and it wasn't Sakura. It reached inside and it clamped down, and it hurt. It hurt like something unreal. Anything real never felt like this, physical pain was never like this. Physical pain was easy. This was not. "I don't want you to die, Sai."

Sakura looked at him with those teary eyes, and the pain in his chest left him alone. His face was blank again. But his chest didn't leave him alone. Whatever was happening now was much harder to explain, and he understood why all those stupid books could never describe what was happening to him right now. He understood why whenever he finished reading one he was left even more confused that before.

He liked her tears in her eyes, so long as they were directed at him. They meant she cared, even if she was hurting. He didn't even care that she was hurting, to be fully truthful. He was greedy for proof of her affection, and he didn't care that her pain was the only way to get it. "Your tears, I like them. They make you a little less ugly." And he smiled at her, except it wasn't that hideous fake smile that made her want to rip it off his face. It was a smile that made the edge of his eyes crinkle to make little crows feet at the corners.

And it was those little crows feet that compelled Sakura to do what she did next. She leaned forward and placed her lips on his. They were cold, just like he was, but they were soft too. Kissing was softer than she had imagined it would ever be. And Sai lay there still. Though, she had doubted that he would have reacted even if he was able to. Even with a real smile it didn't mean the boy was about to open up his world to her.

And when she pulled away he looked up to ear with lifeless crinkled eyes. And no one would notice the difference from his fake smile if they hadn't known Sai and hadn't known the detail of that fake smile. She panicked and began trying to heal Sai again; pumping all the chakra she could into his body. Doing everything she could until she slipped from life herself. She fell unconscious on top of his chest. Chakra depleted and soul broken Sakura died in the cold arms of a boy who could never love her.


	2. When Things Don't Work In Harmony

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto?

Words: 500

Summary: There's nothing you can do when something's broken beyond repair.

It was a beautiful day, she noted, and watched the extraordinarily blue sky stretch out to touch the plains of green grass. The wind gently blew about, making the day perfectly bearable. It really was a miracle how the sun reflected off dust particles to make such a beautiful shade of blue, and how the earth worked in harmony to do such an incredible things. But, when anything fell out of harmony there were devastating results. The human body was much the same.

Sakura sat in the field of grass and dandelions in her white and cotton summer dress, her old ninja gear now unneeded. How she longed for a mission to take up her abundance of time. She sighed an picked the stem of a dandelion, imaging little lion faces in the midst of their petals. Of course they would be jovial lions, as they were dandy. They would not hiss nor scratch nor bite like any real lion.

She could feel the gust of wind as Naruto sat adjacent to her, his body emanating a melancholy mood much like her own. "Sakura, you know you shouldn't be way out here." his voice was uncharacteristically serious, with a hint of worry. She wished he would just act normal, as his solemn demeanor made everything excruciatingly obvious.

"Ahh, I know, I just like it out here. No one to stare, no one to gossip. Its almos-" She was cut off by a fit of coughing that wracked her body. Hands covering her mouth could contain all but one droplet of blood which landed on the skirt of her dress. It spread and bloomed like a delicate flower. And, as the blood dried it was the color of a dried out sakura petal.

This was Naruo's queue to jump to his feet and run Sakura to the hospital. "Shit, Sakura we have to get you to a hospital." Sakura shut her eyes and buried her face into his chest as he took off at break-neck speed.

"Naruto, stop this, there's nothing you or the medics can do and you know it." She said weakly into his chest. Naruto's pace slowed until he was walking.

He felt weak, useless. He felt like a genin watching Sasuke die again. Naruto put Sakura down. "Tell me what I can do then, please. I need something to do. Something to help. I can't just sit here and watch you die."

She was reluctant to say it, but felt as though she had to. "Please, Naruto, the only thing I want is for you to bring me Sasuke before I die."

Of course. Sasuke. Hearing that request each time was like having a stab to the heart. "I miss him too, Sakura, but why? Why do you miss him so much?"

Sakura wasn't stupid; she could feel the shift in the conversation. She beamed up at him in that everything-will-be-fine way. "I'm getting tired Naruto, could you walk me home please? I would enjoy the company."


End file.
